‘Basically you’re using the federal tax code to entirely create a private choice system in every state,’ Kornheiser says
By Guy Page
The leadership of the House Ways & Means Committee wants nothing to do with allowing Vermonters to access a One Big Beautiful Bill tax credit that would give them a dollar-for-dollar return on money contributed to private school scholarships.
Ways and Means, the committee with oversight over all tax policy and legislation, on Wednesday discussed the section in HR 1, the One Big Beautiful Bill federal law named and pushed through Congress by President Donald Trump, that creates tax credits for contributions to Scholarship Granting Organizations (SGOs).
‘Basically you’re using the federal tax code to entirely create a private choice system in every state’
– House Ways & Means Committee Chair Emilie Kornheiser (D-Brattleboro)
The federal law gives states the opportunity to ‘opt out’ of the SGO tax credits, according to legislation introduced by Chair Emilie Kornheiser (D-Brattleboro). In committee this week, she expressed a strong desire to opt out — or to require explicit legislative approval before participating — citing concerns that the program could divert resources from Vermont’s public education system.
Kornheiser described the tax credit as “a quite brilliant complete workaround from the entire state level education system, in that it created a system where basically you’re using the federal tax code to entirely create a private choice system in every state.
“I want to make sure that everything we’re doing is focused on the education system that we have and not any added payoff that the federal level may cause,” Kornheiser said. “I also, on tax ethics grounds, like to avoid as many loopholes as possible, even if they are federal tax loopholes and not state tax loopholes.”
According to committee testimony on February 11, Kornheiser prefers the language of H.770, introduced by her and Education Chair Peter Conlon (D-Cornwall), which would “preclude Vermont’s participation in the federal tax credit program for contributions to scholarship granting organizations.”
The SGO tax credit opt-out put forward in H770 may be folded into a miscellaneous education bill, Kornheiser said. Here’s how the OBBB tax credit would work, according to the National Coalition for Public Education:
“The One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Public Law (P.L.) 119-21, creates a first of its kind program to funnel taxpayer funds into private elementary and secondary schools. Beginning in 2027, any individual can contribute up to $1,700 per year to a “Scholarship Granting Organization” (SGO) and receive a dollar-for-dollar federal tax credit. The donations collected by the SGO could be used to provide “scholarships” or vouchers to students from families who earn up to 300% of the area gross median income. In return, the donating individual receives a tax credit equivalent to the amount donated, which lowers their tax bill.”
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Categories: Education
It is as plain as day Democrats do not want our youth to succeed and want our society to fail. Democrats want children, adolescents, and teens imprisoned in the failing public school system to serve the NEA et al. Democrats are the tyrants and poor stewards of our resources.
We should support failing public school systems and discourage support of successful private schools. Dem dumb.
You may disagree with Democrats on policy, but to say that they “do not want our youth to succeed and our society to fail” is beyond ridiculous. Why not try to articulate exactly how you disagree and spare us the ranting?
It’s up to the governor to opt in or not. Legislature has no say .
This will be the most telling decision of his entire time in office. What will he do?
This will show his true heart and where he wants to lead Vermonters.
Where does his allegiance lie? Whom does he truly work for?
Aren’t they making a bold and self appointed attempt to rule the governor out with their proposed H770 and make themselves king of the hill? So much for No Kings. The bill states: (a) In accordance with 26 U.S.C. § 25F(g)(1)(B), the General Assembly designates itself as the sole entity to make an election under 26 U.S.C. § 25F.
Thank Heavens!
It’s very difficult just to scan this person’s mug. She seems yo be the one also with another that held off any Veteran tax relief. Re-looking at her pic, she’s the one from Brattleboro. I don’t know who she cares for outside her skit. And the people that voted for her must be smoking weed and on welfare. One of the worse of the worse.
the flatlanders have their boot on the neck of our state
It is genius, because geniuses designed the bill. Cultural Marxists made our current educational system what it currently is, and the fruit is there for all to see.
Vermont is at a crossroads, what direction will the governor take us?
So now we can see a true “authoritarian” doctrine in real time….
According to Rep. KornKaiser: You citizens are to dumb and naive to take advantage of a simple tax credit in the interest of your child’s best interests. So we are going to proceed to leash you to the fence so you don’t hurt our precious education monopoly and the NEA Superfund system… Bark all you want dogs…
Yup….that is how much pride they have. Clearly, they are very worried about protecting their Bureaucracy ….:)
Protect the Bureaucracy!!!
I mean democracy….yeah, yeah democracy.
It’s a tax credit for up to $1700: hardly creating a federally sponsored private school system. And it’s available only for low and modest-income families (up to 3 times the federal poverty level). It makes choice that little bit more feasible. So of course “progressives” like Kornheiser are against it in favor of “the sham equality of low standards for all” (as Joanna Williams wrote in The Spectator about analogous work by the Labour Party in England).
It is the Governor’s decision, however, whether to participate, as other commenters have noted. Will Scott actually act to earn his title?
As I warned years ago, once Vermont’s progressives launched their indoctrination program on Vermonters’ young children, replete with BLM and Rainbow flags, compelled pronouns, behind-parents’-backs conditioning to change genders, and Critical Race “theory” that employs overt racism to condemn children for the crime of whiteness, it was inevitable that they would have to destroy private schools do all they could to compel public school attendance. These people are criminals, and have undermined the teaching of core subjects in favor of political indoctrination. The state’s public schools are failing as a direct result. What a shocker! They MUST fail now, if we are to reclaim any hope for our children. Close them all down and stop compelling us to pay for demonic indoctrination.
There has been a CHOICE school initiative in Vermont showing that they can outperform our public schools. When you remove the left agendas imbedded into the curriculum, you suddenly free up time for solid academics and these schools can and do outperform the public schools. This endeavor will provide the CHOICE schools with additional funds. I’m curious to see what effect that will have. Gov. Scott do you support Vermonters having CHOICE of academics over left agendas? Or will you shore up the left and deny CHOICE? What a party CHOICE you have.
Commie…to her bone marrow.
Their days are numbered…mark my words.
This is a small step towards real school choice for all, where the money follows them, my children who had the opportunity to choose the schools they hoped would give them the education they personally were motivated for, proved successful.
Unfortunately, they legislature changed school choice in many cases where the money didn’t follow them, and only allowed a small percentage of students to be picked on a first come basis, or a lottery system.
The schools of choice, were effectively eliminated from choice’s, locking out students into limited educational opportunities in order to save failing school systems.
Holding students and their parents hostages once again. Just like teachers strikes. Which also should be outlawed, making binding arbitration the law, just as police and fire must work with…
Everyone is waiting for the federal government bail out and not putting the Epstein files as the number one issue to be exposed. This will go down as the largest scandal in history and is being covered up by confusion and distraction by many on this web site.
If you are so obsessed with the Epstein Files, here they are. I think there are more important issues to be discussed on this Website. But you are free to satisfy your perversion. https://www.justice.gov/epstein/search
The Democrats so eager to try and trap a member of GOP with the information Dems have had total control over for years, slandered at least 4 citizens by reading names that were on the underacted information entrusted only to members of Congress aloud on floor during committee session, these men assisted law enforcement in the Epstein investigation, hence mentioned in records. So now they are associated with being pedophiles, when in reality they were trying to take one off the street, one of these men just lost his high paying job because of his name being read by Democrat Congressman
Brattleboro Republicans: please run a strong candidate against this MONSTER. Ask the rest of Vermont’s Republicans for help. We voted out the Speaker (Mitzi Johnson) in Grand Isle. You can do this!!
Good luck … the Reformer, Commons, VPR, et al will be sure your thoughts, opinions, and critiques don’t see the light of day. Been there.
Some students skipped class on friday to protest against ICE in Burlington. They are protesting against law enforcement. At least make them do it after school. Not unusual for Burlington. I don’t think that the schools should encourage them skip class. What if the schools would put more the emphasis on teaching the three Rs and less emphasis on creating young socialists? But we can’t give money to Private schools because it might threaten the control the NEA has regarding the cost and quality of education. The competition that the private schools create can make the public schools improve. It often increases test scores and lowers absenteeism. I guess the socialists are worried that smarter students will be harder to indoctrinate.
Thank you for discussing the Epstein files as you have now joined the other one thousand web sites that have been doing this for months.
So sorry folks, but we have missed our opportunity. This apple is rotten to its core. Progressives have carefully positioned themselves in key positions and locations. We are peeing into the wind. The most we can hope for is that they will get bored here and move to somewhere else to see if they can corrupt that location. This disaster has been encroaching for some time and we Vermonters kept saying, “naw, no one is that evil, it can’t be true”. Well, guess what, we have been invaded.